


The Quiet of Peace

by JosieRuby1



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, one sided drarry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 18:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9778685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JosieRuby1/pseuds/JosieRuby1
Summary: The war is over and everyone is back at Hogwarts. For Pansy and Draco, this means coming to turns with a lot of guilt.





	

“What the hell are you doing up, Malfoy?”

The flames flickered up from the fireplace, rising and dancing according to their own whim. Draco Malfoy was sat with his legs tucked under him and a blanket wrapped around him on one of the many armchairs in the eighth year’s common room. It was almost 3am and Draco hadn’t been expecting to be disturbed, so he turned at the voice

Pansy Parkinson was stood on the last step before the common room, watching him, her eyes red and looking more tired than Draco had seen her in a long time. He didn’t reply in words just gave her a shrug and looked back at the fireplace.

“You’re gonna be shit company tonight, aren’t you?” She said. In the years he had been in Slytherin with her, Draco had come to know her as someone who didn’t know how to speak without being snarky and rude. It had been how they had become friends; kindred spirits. They shared a hatred of other people and a family that forced them into things they weren’t willing to admit they didn’t agree with. The harsh words remained from Pansy but the tone was gone now. She sounded as tired as she looked and Draco understood, it was a tiredness that could not be solved with sleep.

Draco remained quiet as Pansy walked across the room and sat down on the floor right in front of his chair. She leant with her back against it, her dark hair brushing against the blanket over Draco’s legs. She kept her gaze forward seeming to focus on the flames as intently as Draco had been. A long silence passed but not an uncomfortable one.

“I just spoke to Granger,”

It was Pansy who broke the silence. She hadn’t moved and her voice was so soft that had there been any other noise in the room, Draco wouldn’t have heard her. As it was her softness tore through the quiet with the same force as a marching band.

“How was that?” Draco asked, keeping his voice as soft.

Pansy didn’t reply at once. She pulled her knees to her chest, hugging them for a while before letting them drop back down. She fidgeted for around a minute before finally just lying on the floor, stretched out and staring at the ceiling.

“She forgave me.”

Pansy sounded confused more than anything at that. That confusion was another thing Draco understood way. People had been so kind to them since the war, seeming to have forgotten about the marks on their left arms and the side they had chosen. The torrent of hatred he had expected – and felt he deserved – never came and he didn’t know how to process the niceties.

Pansy huffed out a breath and continued in a way that suggested now she had started she didn’t know how to stop. “I wanted to talk to her because I’ve been a right bitch to her. I mean, to a lot of people but her especially. Her connection to Potter, her fucking perfect grades, her blood status made her such an easy target. God, Dray we were so fucking stupid.”

“Yeah, we were.” Draco said, simply. His mind was too loud for him to be able to find the words to express himself any further. Pansy was having the opposite problem, she didn’t know how to stop now.

“And she’s just so… nice?” Pansy said, “I find myself wanting to hate her because she’s been though shit and been treating like shit and she’s still so nice to everyone. She just… She barely even let me say anything and she just went ‘It’s okay.’ And when I tried telling her that it wasn’t, she just said that she forgave me. How? How the hell do you just forgive like that?”

Draco gave a small shrug of the shoulders, though he wasn’t sure Pansy was looking at him, he wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on the flames still.

“We don’t deserve it,” Pansy moved quickly as she said that. She got to her knees and slid over so that she was right in front of Draco’s chair. She was looking at him intently, a lot of her previous bitterness was in her eyes but this was different. This was aimed inwards rather than at everyone else. “We deserve to be punished. We deserve to have everyone hate us. We _tortured_ people. We made those choices. We fucked up royally, they cannot just accept us now.”

“But they have,” Draco’s voice was deathly calm as he finally averted his eyes from the fire and looked at Pansy. She looked so desperate and he knew in comparison he must look so blank. “People like them are always going to do the right thing is how they function and people like us hate them because they make up look bad.”

“I don’t hate them,” Pansy said.

“Neither do I.”

“I don’t think I ever did.”

“I did,” There was no hint of regret or harshness to Draco’s tone. It was a fact not an opinion. He frowned a little, this was the first time voicing these thoughts, thoughts he had always had to keep to himself. “But not for the reasons I was supposed to. Not the way Lucius wanted me to.”

Pansy took his hand and he let her drag him off the chair and onto the floor, where she sat beside him. She pulled the blanket and wrapped it around them both, leaning her head against his shoulder. She was quiet now. She wanted to know what Draco meant.

“I was supposed to hate them because they were against V- you-know-who, because they were blood-traitors and mudbloods,” Draco flinched a little at how easily he was able to say the word even now that he had accepted that he had he didn’t believe it. “But I didn’t. I hated them because they were smart, because they had family who gave a damn about them and because everyone fucking loved him and so- so did I.”

Pansy didn’t react despite Draco cutting off suddenly and tensing. Draco remained quiet and looked over at here. She gave him a small smile, “Sorry was I supposed to be shorted by that confession?” She asked.

Draco was brought up short by that and had to let out a laugh, shaking his head and nudging her slightly. “Shut up, Parkinson,” he muttered. It was all that was needed to defuse the tension surrounding the room. He felt less on edge as he continued. “But Merlin, I think I was jealous of Weasley, a big family and yet they actually all loved each other. They never ran out. The more people around the more they seemed to love each other. I hated it because… I never knew what it was like.”

Pansy wrapped an arm around him then, pulling him closer. “I get it,” The words were simply, the words someone usually said to try and stop people talking and feign understanding. This was different, Pansy was probably the only person Draco could talk to who genuinely did get it. The only person in almost exactly the same position as he was.

“I’m glad we’re friends,” Draco said, quietly, leaning against her, finding the action calming and reassuring.

“Merlin, we got sentimental,” Pansy teased lightly. “But so am I. Merlin knows we need each other to get through them lot and their kindness.”


End file.
